


Only You Can Prevent Oranges

by draconicsockpuppet



Category: Dwarf Fortress
Genre: Canon-Typical Crack, F/F, Mad Engineers And The People Who Love Them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-15 02:04:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20858417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draconicsockpuppet/pseuds/draconicsockpuppet
Summary: Sometimes it just doesn't pay to break the laws of physics.





	Only You Can Prevent Oranges

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/gifts).

Morning, the first of Sandstone in the year 1103 of the Twilight Age. Onul Oilspatter stared up at her ceiling. The room smelled of oranges.

"They grow every year," Dastot Granitecounselled said beside her. "Go back to sleep."

Onul rolled over onto her side. "I hate this."

"You moved to Fruitwallow," Dastot said, and burrowed deeper into the soft goosedown duvet that had been a wedding gift to them both from her parents. "Deal with it."

Onul looked up at the ceiling again. Oh, she would.

There were other fruits growing on the lush hillside above Fruitwallow, of course; limes and kumquats and avocados, dates and lychees and papayas. Onul didn't hate the smell of those. She hated oranges with a passion she'd never known before migrating from Ghostearth. Sure, she had to spend less of her precious time putting coffins together here, and the bones and teeth of slain livestock didn't try to kill her on a regular basis, but the tradeoff made Ghostearth's persistent undead problems look almost benign in comparison.

Duke Giltbottom loved oranges, and every year Fruitwallow's stores were filled with them. The smell made Onul want to retch for months. But perhaps she could do something about that…

"You're having ideas again, aren't you," Dastot said.

"Maybe." Onul tilted her head; Dastot met her eyes and smiled. "How would you feel if I picked a fight with the Duke?"

"Is there a year you _don't_ pick a fight with the Duke?"

Onul counted up on her fingers, mentally reviewing every year she'd lived in Fruitwallow. …No.

Dastot nodded slowly. "We're to go cut down everything except the orange trees today, so I'll be busy. Tell me when you figure out what parts you need for your latest contraption and I'll set the wood aside."

Onul beamed. She had the best wife.

* * *

Step one: Put all the oranges in the same place. A fine use for a minecart system, and the Duke should be amenable given the right approach. Onul spent her next three days of downtime on a detailed proposal for an orange-only stockroom and a minecart sorting system. She signed it with Fath Wheelbear's name. He wouldn't mind. Probably.

(Alright, yes, he might mind having to take a break from his experimental magma pump stack for yet another silly whim from the Duke, but she'd happily volunteer to handle this project herself. It would work out, she was certain. She would _make_ it work.)

Duke Giltbottom loved the idea, of course. He actually came to the mechanics' workshop and started making noises about how wonderful a dedicated orange stockroom might be, how it would need to be smoothed and engraved with pictures of the fruit and trees, and he might move his throne room to be closer to the oranges –

Onul bit her tongue and nodded and smiled through the entire production. Being under constant siege by undead was looking better and better; at least none of the nobility lived long enough to cause trouble in Ghostearth.

Still, she had permission, and she had a plan, and now her schedule was clear of other tasks so that she could work on it. Ilral Steelroasts down in the forge gave her a funny look when she put in the order for six minecarts, but even Fruitwallow's best smith couldn't argue with the Duke's seal. (Another argument for ending the nobility; Onul made a note for her next discussion over dinner with the philosophers in the library.)

* * *

While sufficient for the millstone, the windmill on the hillside didn't provide enough extra power to run one floor of rollers, let alone thirty. Onul stared at her plans. She needed a consistent source of more power than Fruitwallow had ever seen. She needed … a dwarven water reactor.

There'd been tales of them in Ghostearth, of course. The elderly mechanic who'd taught Onul her trade, Sibrek Toadclobber, had warned her that too much power could go to a dwarf's head. Onul didn't see the problem; she wasn't hooking her own skull up to the gears, just some automated propulsion devices. She would, however, need to commandeer a few miners for a week, plus part of Fruitwallow's extensive reservoir.

The Duke's seal was good for that too.

"I need wood now," Onul told Dastot that night in bed.

"Of course you do," Dastot said. "It took you long enough. How much?" Onul produced her diagram with the calculations, and Dastot squinted at it. "Yeah, okay."

Onul had the _best_ wife.

* * *

The reactor worked. Fath Wheelbear looked at it funny – he had some odd ideas about 'friction' and something about perpetual motion machines being illogical, but Onul didn't understand the source of his objections, nor did she care. Besides, it couldn't have been too important; he went right up to the manager's office to request more waterwheels be built to power his ridiculous magma pump stack.

Meanwhile, the sorting system was a huge success. The new stockroom held every orange in the fortress. The Duke did have his throne moved down; possibly a danger for the next step in the plan, but he spent most of his time in the tavern anyway. Onul wasn't too worried.

When she snuck down that night and flipped the second lever she'd installed, the minecarts came and took every piece of fruit in the stockroom to the next step in her brilliant plan: the magma chute. She still had to smell them burn for a few hours, but the scent would pass. At last, Fruitwallow was free of oranges!

Duke Giltbottom was not pleased. In fact, he had the minecarts melted down and the track torn up. (Fath Wheelbear was very happy to inherit Onul's waterwheels.) Still, she'd succeeded.

And then the elven caravan came, and they brought with them – wait for it – barrels and barrels of fruit. All kinds of fruit.

Duke Giltbottom bought out all the oranges, and nothing else.

The night the haulers finally finished bringing every orange down to the Duke's new throne room, Onul went and stared at the barrels stacked high. So many barrels, and every one stuffed full of oranges.

"Help me carry this." Onul turned, and Dastot was there, struggling with a big sack of … sawdust? Onul shrugged and took the sack, and Dastot began to spread sawdust everywhere. Then they went up and took flour from the kitchen stockrooms and spread that all over, too, their footsteps spreading dust into the air in great clouds. Finally, they poured rock nut oil all over the barrels. Once they'd finished, Dastot pulled Onul out into the corridor, lit a torch, and threw it into the stockroom before shutting the door.

There was a muted _boom_, and the floor rattled.

"What."

"Did you know," Dastot said thoughtfully, "an order came today with the Duke's seal. None of us quite knew why, but it clearly stated that every single orange tree on the hillside was to be cut down." She grinned. "So we did."

Onul stared at her. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"That's what you have me for, dearest." Dastot patted Onul's shoulder. "Simple solutions to everyday problems."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Demitas for beta reading.


End file.
